ESPN Insider Picks Knicks vs Suns in NBA Finals

Getty Jalen Brunson of the New York Knicks reacts during the third quarter of the game against the Miami Heat.

ESPN’s NBA front office insider Bobby Marks picked the New York Knicks as his early favorite to win the Eastern Conference next season.

Marks views the Knicks’ home game against the new-look Phoenix Suns on November 26 as an early preview of next year’s NBA Finals.

“Star power versus roster continuity,” Marks said in a roundtable discussion with his ESPN colleagues. “Yes, I have penciled in both teams as my early favorites to represent each conference in June.”

“The styles in how the two rosters were built are totally opposite. The high-spending Suns went all-in with the Kevin Durant trade in February and then added Bradley Beal in June. The Knicks, on the other hand, have taken a more conservative approach, returning 13 players that lost to Miami in the second round while adding only Donte DiVincenzo in free agency.”

Barring any major trade, the Knicks will run it back next season with DiVincenzo replacing Obi Toppin, who was traded to Indiana, in the rotation. They are banking on the internal growth of their core that came two possessions away from forcing Game 7 against the Heat in the Eastern Conference semifinals despite Julius Randle playing on one healthy ankle.

Jalen Brunson has emerged as a bankable playoff star. RJ Barrett found his rhythm in the middle of the playoffs.

Both players are having stellar runs with Team USA and Canada this summer.

If Brunson and Barrett take their games to another level and Randle sustains his All-Star form, Marks’ prediction has a great chance of happening.

RJ Barrett Leads Canada Past Spain

Barrett had another clutch performance in overtime as Canada upset the top-ranked Spain 85-80 on Thursday, August 17, in a warmup game leading to the 2023 FIBA World Cup.

Barrett scored six clutch points in overtime that steadied Canada amid Spain’s furious run from seven points down. The 23-year-old Knicks forward finished with 18 points on 6-of-11 shooting, two rebounds, two steals and one assist.

His latest heroics came on the heels of his 31-point explosion against Germany over the weekend.

Julius Randle Viewed as a ‘Ceiling-Limiting Player’

The Knicks have a top 55-66 player in Randle, per The Athletic’s NBA Player Tiers. However, the two-time All-Star forward’s two playoff flops have hit his value.

Randle has become a polarizing figure in New York because of his game’s extreme ebb and flow. During his two All-Star seasons (2021 and 2023), Randle was a beast in the regular season but suddenly tamed in the playoffs.

Seth Partnow, who did the NBA Player Tiers, cited Randle’s true shooting percentage always drastically fell off in the playoffs to 46.2% from 55.4% in the regular season over the past three seasons.

“This is the very definition of a floor-raising but ceiling-limiting profile, a player type who is exceptionally hard to value through the prism of championship contention, as getting to the playoffs is the first step in winning a title, and having a regular-season innings-eater or two can help a team get to the postseason without overly taxing its top players,” Partnow wrote.

He concluded that players like Randle are difficult to build with or around “because of the need to move away from their preferred style once the playoffs start and, more importantly, because players of this nature get paid handsomely for that regular-season accumulation.”

“It’s simply not realistic to expect to be able to afford a championship roster knowing that a near-max-making regular-season workhorse is going to have to take a much smaller role if a team has designs on deep playoff runs,’ Partnow added.